When You Pray Together

One Sunday morning, while attending church services, I ran into Michael, the man I would eventually marry. We had met a couple of years earlier when we worked together on a Christian music project, before I became a believer.

After our second “chance” meeting, we started seeing each other socially and dated almost a year before we married. Even though I was happy to be married to him, it surprised me to discover that marriage didn’t take away the depression like I thought it would. Not long after the wedding, that unwelcome despair returned once again.

A Different Kind of Cure One morning I woke up, looked at my life, and saw how much of it I had wasted on pursuing worthless things instead of the things of God. I have completely blown my one chance to do anything worthwhile for the Lord, I thought. I felt that because of my miserable, failure-filled past, I had forever forfeited the opportunity to do something that could actually make a difference in the lives of others.

I sank into a deep depression from which I didn’t think I would ever recover. It was so bad that I couldn’t even get out of bed.

At my husband’s suggestion, I went to a pastor’s wife at the church. She was especially gifted in the areas of discernment, knowledge revelation and Christian counseling. Mary Anne knew the Word and the power of it, and she understood how to pray in the authority of the Holy Spirit. She was well acquainted with the God of the Bible who delivers, heals and transforms lives through prayer.

I told Mary Anne my story. She suggested that we fast for three days. Then, she would see me again, and we would pray. I did as she instructed and went back the following week to meet with her and another pastor’s wife. From the moment they laid their hands on my head and shoulders and began to pray, I could sense the power of the Holy Spirit.

They prayed, among other things, that I would be set free from depression, suicidal thoughts and fear. And the most amazing thing happened as they prayed: I actually felt the depression leave. I mean I felt physical sensation in my arms and shoulders as the heaviness and depression lifted off of me. In its place were lightness, freedom, peace, hope and joy.

The next morning I fully expected the depression to return, even though the counselor said it wouldn’t. But she was right; it wasn’t there. And it didn’t come back the next day either—or the next. In fact, it never came back. It was entirely gone.

There had been a complete work. It was something God had done, when nothing and no one else could do it.

From that time on, I became a believer in the power of praying together with other Christians. If God could, in one instant, take away a hopeless lifelong condition, then what more could He do? What more does He want to do?